Raising a stink with sator












2-3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
3-4 garlic cloves, sliced
3-4 shallots, sliced thinly
3-4 bird’s eye chillies, sliced
1/2 cup sator, sliced into half
300g shrimps, deveined and cleaned
A dash of kapi (or belacan)
Fish sauce to taste



The bitter truth about ageing



















Noodling around khanom jiin








khanom jiin 12




khanom jiin 2





Egging on for weekend breakfasts








Khai kata




Finding comfort in Mae’s bamboo shoot salad

























Pulp fiction: when mango meets sticky rice

















Just as happy as a clam on a bed of spaghetti















Ingredients (serves 2)

500g baby clams (Manila clams work fine too)
1 cup horapa basil leaves, plucked
2-3 tbsp Thai roasted chilli paste
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2-3 chillies, sliced
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp fish sauce (optional)


Cha-om: leaves with an offending smell, but the power to please


THAI cooking has no lack of pungent (note: this is subjective) but yummy food items. I don’t even classify durians—and especially Thai durians—within this category yet. Sator is one classic example, although the culinary use of these stinky beans is not restricted to Thais only as the Malays and Peranakans are also known to whip up superb stink-bean dishes (think prawn and petai sambal).

Another strong-smelling favourite of mine is cha-om (ชะอม) or acacia leaf. The tropical variant (Acacia pennata) of the acacia family, the leaves are commonly used in Thai, Lao and Burmese cooking. And these leaves can be quite a stink bomb indeed. When I brought them home from the market, the leaves stank up my kitchen and fridge, as though someone let off a vicious, lingering fart.


But offensive smells aside, the fresh acacia stalks mesmerised me to bits. The way Thai vendors handle their greens are often a showcase of ingenuity. For this cha-om bundle, a banana leaf was folded and wrapped around the stalk ends as a base, with a thin bamboo strip securely tied around as a clip.

However, closer inspection of these feathery bundles would reveal tiny thorns on the cha-om stems, so do exercise caution when plucking the fronds off the stems.

One of the best ways to taste the inherent goodness of this vegetable is through khai jiao cha-om (ไข่เจียวชะอม) or acacia omelette, which is very easy to make; the steps are similar to how one would cook minced pork omelette, for example.


[Recipe] Break the eggs into a bowl, add the plucked cha-om leaves and whisk the mixture. Add a pinch of salt and few drops of soya/fish sauce. Heat up some oil on the skillet on high heat, then pour in the egg mixture. Unlike typical omelettes which require a rather thin film to cook well, cha-om omelette should be rather thick and the mixture should come to a height of, say, 1/2 inch from the base. When one side of the the omelette is golden-brown, flip it over. When both sides are evenly cooked, remove the omelette from the skillet and place them on a piece of kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil. When the omelette is sufficiently cool enough, use a knife to cut them into square chunks or slices, depending on preference.

The offending smell would have disappeared by now, leaving a fragrant omelette of yellows, greens and browns. Serve the omelette on top of steamed rice, dunked into kaeng som (Thai sour curry) or dip them into naam phrik kapi (chilli dip). Whichever way it is, the omelette is guaranteed to be potent yet pleasing.


Jaew bong: a mother’s burning love for her sons


JAEW bong (แจ่วบอง), the spicy chilli dip of Northeastern Thailand, is the best culinary representation of Mr. P’s mum’s love for her sons. A type of chilli relish in Thailand, jaew bong is what naam phrik num is to the northerners and naam phrik kapi is to the central Thais, and somewhat like what sambal is to the Malaysians, Singaporeans and Indonesians.

Whenever Mr. P is back home, his mum never tires in whipping up her son’s favourite dishes. Like maeng kork—it isn’t Mr. P’s favourite though but he had a sudden craving and the parents obliged—MIL whipped up her version of jaew bong during our recent visit back to Mr. P’s hometown in Udon Thani. When Mr P’s brother lived apart from the parents, he also requested for their mum’s jaew bong whenever he was home.

Plaa raa, the fermented fish—fragrant to some, pungent to others, but definitely intense—is a vital component. Chopped shallots, lemongrass, kaffir leaves and bird’s eye chillies were first roasted over a slow fire to release the fragrance and increase their brittleness before combining the mixture with minced plaa raa to be pounded in a mortar to create the paste, according to MIL’s recipe. Just as how naam phrik differs from region to region, the ingredients and steps of making jaew bong also vary from mother to mother.


On the morning we departed from Udon, MIL handed over her special concoction, reminding me at the same time to store the paste in the fridge. “It can last for several months,” she said.

Back in Bangkok, we assembled a raw vegetable set of cabbage, winged beans, string beans and cucumber, blanched bai tamlueng (ivy gourd leaves), together with sticky rice, to eat with jaew bong. The ideal way is to dip the greens into jaew bong, while interspersing the fiery flavours with knobs of sticky rice kneaded up from the woven bamboo basket. I especially liked the slight smoky flavour of the jaew bong, the result of grilling the ingredients over a slow fire.

And now whenever hunger pangs strike, Mr. P just have to reach into the fridge for doses of his mum’s love, all across the 500km of physical distance.

In Isaan, a bug hunting season begins

a plate of deep-fried beetles

THE night was sweltering, the air exceptionally still and humid. Nary a thing moved, and neither the leaves nor wind. Sprawled on the bamboo swings outside the house, Mr. P and I each nursed a can of chilled beer, hoping the coolness would banish the hot spell. The heat was unbearable; I tore the cover from a magazine and started fanning myself with that piece of paper.

A couple of steps away, Yai Canton (or Grandma Canton, nicknamed by me because her father came from Guangdong province eons ago) had perched herself on a foldable chair under the lamppost. On the ground, she had placed a rice-cooker pot half filled with water. Palmy, her three-year-old granddaughter, and my eight-year-old niece, Pin, were busy trailing the maeng ii-nuun (แมงอีนูน; chokchafer beetle) that fluttered awkwardly around the fluorescent light beaming from the lamppost. Each time any of the girls caught a bug, they would squeal in delight and proceeded to place it in the pot.

I was curious as to why the pot was filled with water, but Pin, ever the inquisitive one, beat me to it. “Yai, why did you fill the pot with water?” she enquired.

“If I don’t put water inside, the beetles will escape and fly off after you put them into the pot.” Why didn’t yours truly think of that before, I thought to myself, the silly urban dweller that I am.

Yai Canton was catching these bugs to eat them. Insects are commonly eaten throughout Thailand, but it is a culinary preference most symbolic among the Isaan people. Insects might once be an additional source of protein, but it’s now more commonly eaten as a snack among the Isaan natives, according to Mr. P. When his mum asked if he missed any food, he replied maeng kork (แมงกอก; I haven’t found the English name and would appreciate any information on this) and a big plate of these deep-fried beetles (pictured above) surfaced the following day.

maeng kok

Sweat trickling down our backs, we continued to sit on the bamboo swings. A motorbike with two riders zipped past us. One of the them donned a head torchlight while the other was clutching an empty bottle. They sped into the darkness, where the sugar cane fields lie.

Then an engine hummed and a pick-up turned into the lane. It was Det, Mr. P’s brother. After parking the vehicle, he joined us at the little bamboo hut outside the house. He exclaimed, “I saw so many lights among the field as I drove in. It’s like a festival out there.”

Moments later, Tom, a childhood friend and neighbour of of Mr. P, rode past us on his motorbike. Mr. P shouted after him in the Isaan dialect, “Where are you going, Tom?” “To catch maeng kork!” he replied, with a bottle clutched in one hand and the other controlling the motorbike handlebar.

Then another motorbike crossed the road. And another. All of them rumbled down the lane leading into the fields, away from the houses in the village.

Yet another motorbike sounded, but this time toward us. It was Apple (pronounced Ap-pern), another of Mr. P’s childhood friends. After a day of work manning his mini mart, he dropped by to chat with Mr. P. He swung himself off the motorbike and seated himself beneath the bamboo hut.

Observing the continual string of motorcycles advancing into the darkness, Apple remarked, “Maeng kork can only be caught during these few days only, just before the rainy season begins. This is the time when the maeng kork go in search of spots to lay their eggs.”

Like Yai Canton, these villagers had caught the insect-hunting bug (no pun intended) that particular night, and everyone was using their own means and ways to ensure a meal of beetles.

Soon after, Tom was back.

“How was your catch?” Mr. P asked.

“Just a few only. There were as many humans as there were bugs in the field!”

Everyone laughed. And the sultry night wore on.